Ignatius Donnelly, himself, had he seen it, could scarcely have saved

his Bacon.
Ileen was of the opinion, also, that Boston is more cultured than

Chicago; that Rosa Bonheur was one of the greatest of women painters;
that Westerners are more spontaneous and open-hearted than Easterners;

that London must be a very foggy city, and that California must be
quite lovely in the springtime. And of many other opinions indicating

a keeping up with the world's best thought.
These, however, were but gleaned from hearsay and evidence: Ileen had

theories of her own. One, in particular, she disseminated to us
untiringly. Flattery she detested. Frankness and honesty of speech

and action, she declared, were the chief mental ornaments of man and
woman. If ever she could like any one, it would be for those

qualities.
"I'm awfully weary," she said, one evening, when we three musketeers

of the mesquite were in the little parlor, "of having compliments on
my looks paid to me. I know I'm not beautiful."

(Bud Cunningham told me afterward that it was all he could do to keep
from calling her a liar when she said that.)

"I'm only a little Middle-Western girl," went on Ileen, "who justs
wants to be simple and neat, and tries to help her father make a

humble living."
(Old Man Hinkle was shipping a thousand silver dollars a month, clear

profit, to a bank in San Antonio.[)]
Bud twisted around in his chair and bent the rim of his hat, from

which he could never be persuaded to separate. He did not know
whether she wanted what she said she wanted or what she knew she

deserved. Many a wiser man has hesitated at deciding. Bud decided.
"Why--ah, Miss Ileen, beauty, as you might say, ain't everything. Not

sayin' that you haven't your share of good looks, I always admired
more than anything else about you the nice, kind way you treat your ma

and pa. Any one what's good to their parents and is a kind of home-
body don't specially need to be too pretty."

Ileen gave him one of her sweetest smiles. "Thank you, Mr.
Cunningham," she said. "I consider that one of the finest compliments

I've had in a long time. I'd so much rather hear you say that than to
hear you talk about my eyes and hair. I'm glad you believe me when I

say I don't like flattery."
Our cue was there for us. Bud had made a good guess. You couldn't

lose Jacks. He chimed in next.
"Sure thing, Miss Ileen," he said; "the good-lookers don't always win

out. Now, you ain't bad looking, of course-but that's nix-cum-rous.
I knew a girl once in Dubuque with a face like a cocoanut, who could

skin the cat twice on a horizontal bar without changing hands. Now, a
girl might have the California peach crop mashed to a marmalade and

not be able to do that. I've seen--er--worse lookers than you, Miss
Ileen; but what I like about you is the business way you've got of

doing things. Cool and wise--that's the winning way for a girl. Mr.
Hinkle told me the other day you'd never taken in a lead silver dollar

or a plugged one since you've been on the job. Now, that's the stuff
for a girl--that's what catches me."

Jacks got his smile, too.
"Thank you, Mr. Jacks," said Ileen. "If you only knew how I

appreciate any one's being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tired
of people telling me I'm pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing to

have friends who tell you the truth."
Then I thought I saw an expectant look on Ileen's face as she glanced

toward me. I had a wild, sudden impulse to dare fate, and tell her of
all the beautiful handiwork of the Great Artificer she was the most

exquisite--that she was a flawless pearl gleaming pure and serene in a
setting of black mud and emerald prairies--that she was--a--a corker;

and as for mine, I cared not if she were as crtiel as a serpent's
tooth to her fond parents, or if she couldn't tell a plugged dollar

from a bridlebuckle, if I might sing, chant, praise, glorify, and
worship her peerless and wonderful beauty.

But I refrained. I feared the fate of a flatterer. I had witnessed
her delight at the crafty and discreet words of Bud and Jacks. No!

Miss Hinkle was not one to be beguiled by the plated-silver tongue of
a flatterer. So I joined the ranks of the candid and honest. At once

I became mendacious and didactic.
"In all ages, Miss Hinkle," said I, "in spite of the poetry and

romance of each, intellect in woman has been admired more than beauty.
Even in Cleopatra, herself, men found more charm in her queenly mind

than in her looks."
"Well, I should think so!" said Ileen. "I've seen pictures of her

that weren't so much. she had an awfully long nose."
"If I may say so," I went on, "you remind me of Cleopatra, Miss

Ileen."
"Why, my nose isn't so long!" said she, opening her eyes wide and

touching that comely feature with a dimpled forefinger.
"Why--er--I mean," said I--" I mean as to mental endowments."

"Oh!" said she; and then I got my smile just as Bud and Jacks had got
theirs.

"Thank every one of you," she said, very, very sweetly, "for being so
frank and honest with me. That's the way I want you to be always.

Just tell me plainly and truthfully what you think, and we'll all be
the best friends in the world. And now, because you've been so good

to me, and understand so well how I dislike people who do nothing but
pay me exaggerated compliments, I'll sing and play a little for you."

Of course, we expressed our thanks and joy; but we would have been
better pleased if Ileen had remained in her low rocking-chair face to

face with us and let us gaze upon her. For she was no Adelina Patti--
not even on the fare-wellest of the diva's farewell tours. She had a

cooing little voice like that of a turtle-dove that could almost fill
the parlor when the windows and doors were closed, and Betty was not

rattling the lids of the stove in the kitchen. She had a gamut that I
estimate at about eight inches on the piano; and her runs and trills

sounded like the clothes bubbling in your grandmother's iron wash-pot.
Believe that she must have been beautiful when I tell you that it

sounded like music to us.
"She Must Have Been Beautiful When I Tell You That It Sounded Like

Music To Us"
Ileen's musical taste was catholic. She would sing through a pile of

sheet music on the left-hand top of the piano, laying each slaughtered
composition on the right-hand top. The next evening she would sing

from right to left. Her favorites were Mendelssohn, and Moody and
Sankey. By request she always wound up with Sweet Violets and When

the Leaves Begin to Turn.
When we left at ten o'clock the three of us would go down to Jacks'

little wooden station and sit on the platform, swinging our feet and
trying to pump one another for dews as to which way Miss Ileen's

inclinations seemed to lean. That is the way of rivals--they do not
avoid and glower at one another; they convene and converse and

construe--striving by the art politic to estimate the strength of the
enemy.

One day there came a dark horse to Paloma, a young lawyer who at once
flaunted his shingle and himself spectacularly upon the town. His

name was C. Vincent Vesey. You could see at a glance that he was a
recent graduate of a southwestern law school. His Prince Albert coat,

light stripedtrousers, broad-brimmed soft black hat, and narrow white
muslin bow tie proclaimed that more loudly than any diploma could.

Vesey was a compound of Daniel Webster, Lord Chesterfield, Beau
Brummell, and Little Jack Horner. His coming boomed Paloma. The next

day after he arrived an addition to the town was surveyed and laid off
in lots.

Of course, Vesey, to further his professional fortunes, must mingle
with the citizenry and outliers of Paloma. And, as well as with the

soldier men, he was bound to seek popularity with the gay dogs of the
place. So Jacks and Bud Cunningham and I came to be honored by his